UND-FB-FAN

New facilities are a positive, and will help, but the current coaching will continue to limit the overall success. The ceiling is set. The current coach's inability to lead UND football to a championship, despite his love and connections, is perpetuated by supporters prioritizing friendship over team success, hindering UND’s performance in big games.

UND leadership's job security isn't tied to football performance but to hockey, a focus set by major donor Ralph Engelstad and his foundation. This priority, and the resultant funding discrepancy, has been noticed by student-athletes and coaches, leading to their departure to better-funded regional rivals. Despite hollow conversations with UND leaders, new football facilities offer some hope for talent improvement, although inadequate coaching decisions will remain a problem.

Ironically, the much criticized and publicized UND deal with REA, Inc. suggests that precedent has already been set. Ultimately, actions always speak louder than words. Been a lot of words lately (as usual). Been a few actions, also. I don’t agree with many of the actions. Time will tell if everything works out, but history suggests it won’t.

That is because it hasn’t been proven wrong yet. The current football coaching situation, despite lacking in high-end skills for recruitment, retention, and coaching strategy for championship success, is favored by the leadership for its cost-effectiveness, compliance, and affable personality.

Within the grand scheme, if this is the approach, then therein lies the problem with UND athletics. Sitting around and waiting for all those 7-8 figure donations has really been going well, hasn’t it? These type of financial gaps (https://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/college/miller-coaching-exits-not-about-the-financial-gap-and-all-about-the-financial-gap) wouldn’t exist if the “only the big boys and girls get invited to the table” approach was gone

In this day and age, 6 to 7 figures minimum. See recent Sanford gift (https://blogs.und.edu/und-today/2024/04/und-announces-6-5-million-gift-from-sanford-health/). As we sit at present, UND leaders prefer cost-effective, comfortable football coaching options and a hockey focus over perhaps more risky coaching enhancements, while sentiment-driven football donors unknowingly accept third (or fourth) place.

Bubba ball and Chaves coordinating … Ridiculous. Influential donors need to start demanding results/wins, not nice guy hand-shakes.

Hey, look, right again. So easy predicting the actions of this wandering-in-the-dark lost program. Good job Chaves.

Nepotism, Corruption and Mediocrity continues at UND! No surprise … it’s easier just accepting apathy at this point. Good luck folks with your mediocrity. Hard to be too proud of my alma mater at this point. I’ll direct my dollars and investments elsewhere. Can’t believe I’ve put in as much $ as I have … stupidity! Pile on, I admit it! I screwed up supporting this program, but I’ll still be around a bit. The local traditions and culture around NE North Dakota and western Minnesota (with the exception apparently being Fargo, which is unsurprisingly booming) continues to astonish me.

Jeez. So predictable. F UND athletics. Hockey will choke it away too

Solid win vs USD. I worry UND will drop the first round game vs ORU. Hopefully they have a solid tourney showing. Would love to see some exposure in the championship game or, better yet, in the national tournament!

Why would you “hope” for that?

Laziness? Incompetence?

Awesome progress this year out of mbb program. Need to finish well; this will make the remainder of the season fun and worth watching!

This is an intentional issue by UND. It would take ~ 50-100k more per year to significantly increase salary pool for UND football relative to the competition. When you consider the amount of funds allocated elsewhere, and what has been recently raised for construction projects, this is not a number that is impossible to find or raise. But, once again, the expectations for UND football are too low. UND administration is satisfied with middle of the road salaries. Now Chaves has been now quoted in the GF Herald saying salaries aren’t everything; sure, they’re not, but its been the elephant in the room for a while for UND football, especially this off-season with the coaching turnover. If you want to recruit top coaching candidates to Grand Forks, you need to compensate at the same level - if not more - than NDSU and SDSU. Right now, UND football is purposefully putting themselves at a disadvantage. The true tell will be when Bubba is no longer head coach and a new coach is being searched for; that will especially be the time to raise the salary pool for obvious (recruiting) purposes during the searching/hiring process. Simply paying the current coaches more now isn’t going to fix current problems/issues.

Sure, Bubba has gave up some of his salary, but the assistant coaches pool is too low even with those “donations”. Needs to be raised, but you don’t give that elevation to the current guys; you make that elevation availabe upon an open competitive job search to attract the best. That is the simple solution, but yet, it’s not that simple. Need UND to want football to be better, first and foremost. That comes down to Chaves, Armacost, and more importantly, the major stakeholders. Put your money where your mouth is. You get what you pay for. Facilities are looking good, but you can’t recruit and retain high quality coaches without high end salaries. After all, we’re taking about Grand Forks, ND … Lastly, Bubba has had a good run, but the salary rises need to align with a change in coaching staff, not under the current regime.

You’re joking, right?

From a UND perspective…. Ouch.

Ridiculous proposition, although Chaves went with it, because as Tom Miller wrote in his article, Bubba won’t be here forever to save that ridiculous budgeting plan, if indeed true. The cold hard truth is football is not appropriately emphasized at UND. Money talks. If you also read Miller’s article, he makes perhaps the best point of all; it’s not what the head coach’s salary is that is correlated with success, but rather what the assistant coaches make that is in fact correlated with success. UND’s assistant coaches - namely coordinators - are not compensated like a championship program within the MVFC. SDSU and NDSU on the other hand…

Regionally speaking, in terms of trying to recruit folks to work and live in Grand Forks, ND, it’s an incredibly, should we say, suspect strategy to have bottom-half salaries compared to conference peers. In my opinion, it’s ridiculous and puts UND athletics in an immediate disadvantage.

Wait, there’s more: https://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/college/miller-coaching-exits-not-about-the-financial-gap-and-all-about-the-financial-gap?fbclid=IwAR2At4yxzzZuviRaVgWgJBlG8mmfsAxj6z0bR8X-9YmlYkVo5d8zijMDr8Y_aem_AShWdNYV_1Y1iEC2I3pW8vTRF6z5y5u_8PN5toN3eOJob8yut3j610WpN2Z2W18HJYA

Unfortunately, this is most probable outcome, but it’s not the right outcome in my opinion. Improvement is “hard”

Another illustration of the “issues”: https://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/college/after-coaching-exits-herald-data-shows-unds-pay-for-top-football-coaches-lags-behind-league-peers?fbclid=IwAR0txqJDvRyfm3RKEWSmmw-WEQlyq7YQvxgganf7cyFb07eGnpODJJSKMVE_aem_ASiE8YUMaNUeSIQPxDTa-Jz88Dgr8ApXIZbNZxZkrExBdKPr0ARy8ROKXo-FC_wq0po

Simple alignment is not the issue. Teams rarely are in base defense nowadays anyways; almost always in what you’d call sub packages (nickel). The issues on defense are recruiting, development, and, probably the biggest, the brainpower (or lack thereof) behind the defense.

2019 was the most suspect due to no conference. I think 2022 and 2023 were felt to be comfortable only because of MVFC affiliation, not because the team exceeded expectations.